The title of the blog comes from Henri Lefebvre. In The Urban Revolution Lefebvre insists the purpose of radical critique is to “open a path to the possible, to explore and delineate a landscape that is not merely part of the ‘real,’ the accomplished, occupied by existing social, political, and economic forces.” For Lefebvre the “real” was the existing capitalist city, and the possible was what he called “urban society,” a virtual object that is both a horizon toward which we must move and also something that is always already here, present in our everyday lives, even if it is inchoate, emerging, and difficult to see.

For me this virtual object, this possible toward which radical critique must cut a path, is democracy. Not liberal democracy and its elections, parties, and governing institutions. But real democracy, democracy at the bone, democracy as a way of life, a social life in which people become active, reappropriate their own proper power, and undertake the ongoing project of managing the conditions of their existence. Democracy toward the horizon. A path to the possible.